Networks communicably connect two or more devices, and may include various network components (such as access points, routers, switches, base-stations, etc.) that may be interconnected via assorted communications media (such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, wireless communication channels, etc.). The characteristics and/or performance of a network can be measured by a variety of metrics. For example, a bandwidth or throughput metric may measure how many bits per second the network can communicate. As another example, a latency or delay metric may measure how long it takes some unit of data (such as a data packet) to traverse the network from source to destination (for one-way latency) or from source to destination and then back to source (for round-trip latency).
In certain contexts, a network operator may institute policies in an attempt to ensure that their network provides a specific level of performance for certain metrics. Such a guarantee of a certain level of performance for a particular network metric may be referred to as a “Quality of Service” (QoS) guarantee. Certain metrics have over time come to be associated with QoS guarantees, and these metrics may be referred to herein as “QoS metrics. Such QoS metrics may include, among others: bandwidth/throughput, latency/delay, loss, bit-error-rate (BER), and jitter.
The overall subjective experience of a user with the network in relation to a particular data flow for a particular application may be referred to as the overall Quality-of-Experience (QoE) for the data flow. For example, a data flow for a voice-over-IP (VoIP) application that results in the user experiencing a jittery VoIP call might have poor QoE, whereas a VoIP data flow that results in the user experiencing a smooth artifact-free VoIP call might have acceptable QoE. The overall QoE associated with a data flow may be based on multiple aspects of the user's experience, some of which may be objectively measurable. For example, metrics such as stall rates, frame drops, page load times, and the like may be relevant to the overall QoE a user experiences.